Month: January 2019
Well, Serves Me Bloody well Right!
I was updating some files for the Britcomics group -currently 126 Albums and 3,723 images (excluding images in text files)- and realised I needed to get a date for an illustration. Went to the source and found another character -how I missed him the first time I have no idea but 6-7 years ago things were a bit bleak so I use that as an excuse.
I then noticed something….another character in a source I had only made a page number note on. There were, indeed costumed and masked super heroes (though the British preferred the term “adventurers”) in the 1920s and before. There were characters whom we would describe today as “human technology users” -yes, we had characters who used power suits and more way, way, way, before say Iron Man from Marvel -who was not the first character to hold that name as there was an “Iron Man” in the Boys papers…one a power suit/semi robotic and another in skin-tight outfit and mask in the early 1900s.
In fact, we had bat-winged flying wonders, leaping springalds, wall-crawlers, super strong and tech device using masked men in abundance. I sat looking at this stuff at around 0400 hrs this morning and realised just how piss-poor the UK scene had become.
Oh yes, this is all going to make for more research and even, perhaps a Guide To the Forgotten Heroes at some point (in fact, I just registered that title at my POD publisher and mentioned it in other places so it is “a thing” now).
Onward and Forward!
Second Annual Forks Raincon on the Way
bookstore: http://www.donnabarr.com
History of Lone Ranger Toys – Vintage Action Figure Review / Collection
Follow up to WHO was the First super hero
My response was as follows:
“There are quite a few -you mean the long johns look? Skin tight outfits were around and to be honest that is splitting hairs. The question was who was the first costumed character who could be considered a “super hero” -the term super applies to heroic characters are beyond the norm and face enemies and situations beyond the norm.
There are some who claim that the Phantom (Lee Falk) from 1936 was the first super hero since he fought evil in a costume and mask.
Mandrake the Magician was another Falk creation from 1934 and there are those who call him the first super hero -and a lot of DC characters such as Zatara et al are classed as super heroes.
I plan to work on a catalogue of British characters up to 1950 and most of these are unknown today.
So, for me, if I had to make a choice for first super hero -the Phantom!
Who Was The First Costumed Super Hero? Well, He Certainly Was NOT American (none of them were!)
Not quite accurate since the UK had masked, costumed and winged heroes, anti heroes and villains well before then.
Rover no. 384, 24th August 1929 -The Black Sapper
And if you had read any Black Tower books you would know that before…what’s his name…”Ghost Rider”? There was The Skeleton Horseman, Paul Peril and Red Hand facing both mortal and supernatural foes -circa 1866
Or, again if you’ve read any Black Tower, how about The Smuggler King from 1844?
Comic Fans are now on the Endangered Species List
I know that it is quite pointless to look for discussion on the subject -my experience blogging, writing books and running Yahoo groups has taught me better- but what happened to the real comic fans?
I am old enough to remember fanzines, letters of comment and even comic fans writing to one another. We travelled from around the country to get to conventions (this was before conventions stopped being about comics and became “media events” and a way to squeeze every penny out of people -seriously, you pay £250 for a table but if you have someone to help you out you have to pay for them to get into the event??).
What happened to groups like Denis Gifford’s old Association of Comic Enthusiasts? There was quite a group of them used to meet up at the old Westminster Comic Marts.
We know comics became “chic” for a while and everyone wanting attention became a “comicologist” or life long comics fan (usually a veteran of 5 years with very dubious comic facts gleaned from equally dubious comic sites online). TVs The Big Bang Theory created a veritable plague of comic book geek chiques. The dealers loved them as they had cash and were stupid: “This issue came out yesterday but it’s a hot-seller and you can’t find it anywhere -cover price was $2.50 but you can have it for $35!” and they sold the books. How did that market collapse work out in the end for the greed merchants?
Five years ago I had 25 You Tube comic channels to watch (I was very selective). Out of those only one exists today. The others have closed up channel and left YT or very rarely post. Others have moved away from comics. In total, five years ago, I noted 75 comic related YT channels so went through the list yesterday. Gone. Every last one of them.
There are the slick looking channels with alleged ‘comic fans’ who seem to be more interested in mocking the comics than looking at them seriously. There are a few of the “This comic is worth $$$” channels out there but, be honest, they are NOT comic fans; their only interest is in buying and selling. The other channels are so engrossed in their SJW-Anti SJW warring that it is tedious and boring and, honestly, they need to just pack up and go away because videos full of sexist, homophobic (do not claim you had no idea that “soy boy” was the current term replacing “gay boy” because, dammit there are laws stopping homophobic comments) and right wing while claiming that the “Far Left” is guilty of these things -it IS about peoples politics and it is a blight everywhere.
None of that is fandom. It is fakery in the hope of getting more and more attention.
The fanzines are gone and if you want to buy Alter Ego or one of the other slick US fanzines in the UK you pay a high price! I produced a new version of the Comic Bits fanzine -absolutely no interest. Others have tried and failed.
UK comic forums are usually fully of bullying and trolling and owners turn a blind eye when this gets reported because they are either supporting the abuse or don’t want to be bullied themselves -which is condoning what is going on. Grow a set of balls -if you are scared someone might say something nasty about you go hide in a corner and be quiet or close your forum down.
My Britcomics sites were set up on Yahoo groups in 2001 -the year they started after Yahoo closed down its 360 blogs. 30th January 2001 the groups started and I set mine up in February of that year. Then the Spammer/Troll Wars hit the groups between 2003-2005 when everyone who thought they could freely spam porn and other stuff (owners were innocent in those days and never moderated memberships) and in came the trolls attacking any and everyone and that destroyed many groups. Others (like me) purged the memberships because the groups were designed to get conversations going between fans and be friendly. I bought in a rule, later adopted by other group owners, that if someone was rude to another member and there was no reason then that person had a choice: apologise to the member involved and the group or receive a lifelong ban. It worked.
The Britcomics group looks at Golden and Silver ages British comics and has 147 members and the albums boast the largest collection of creator/publisher photographs as well as 2,600+ images of comic and annual covers, strip samples and long list of links including some to videos on British comics. Although members can use a pseudonym on the group when they ask to join they do have to give their real name because that way the nastier elements can’t interfere with the group.
But look at CBO and its lack of comments -logically, since the site was moved to blogger in 2011, at least a few of the millions who have visited should have commented.
That fan need to learn more (accurate) facts about comics and creators and see hard if near impossible to find images seems to have gone. The Hooper Interviews was published a LONG time ago -Marv Wolfman, Donna Barr, Mike Western, John Cooper, Mike Cho, Francavilla and many more interviewed therein. Not a single copy has ever sold yet it is the type of book that in the days of real comic fandom we would have grabbed with both hands.
True comic book fans are now on the Red (Endangered Species) List.
UK Comics CAN Be A Reality
It seems that the only real conversations about my comic industry posts come from members of my Yahoo groups -and then rarely. I hold out the hope that one day they will post comments on CBO itself!
I was asked whether I thought that British comics could return and sell. The answer is “Yes”. Since the 1980s I have laid it all out for the companies that existed then and now how it could be achieved. But the problem is that the companies don’t care. They do not care about the money to be made from comics -in fact, several people at Egmont UK pointed out that there was no one there with experience in comics or comic editing and had not been for many years. The people I spoke to, including management, had not even heard of Gil Page -no big surprise.
D. C. Thomson gave up decades ago and look at the state of its current comic. There is absolutely no reason why Thomson -and I have said this many times- could not publish comics that sell (there’s a novelty) and pull in readers -and revenue. If the bosses aren’t interested then nothing will happen because job-worths in the company keep quiet to make sure the pay cheques keep coming until they rertire!
Despite what you might read on the internet (mostly cribbed from my old British Comics Industry Annualo Reports and blog posts) the Small Press is not strong and growing bigger. I keep my eye on what is going on and I gather the data. Even in the early 2000’s I pointed out that the “Small Press” was not some big national movement: you are talking about local, small cliques where the only way that sales are made are through friends and friends of friends who are encouraged to buy and who want to stay in the little clique. There are events around London but these tend to be localised and in most cities this is the case -a group in one area of town will not know the group from the next area yet, back in the 1980s to early 1990s whether you were in Inver-ness, London, Clacton, Bristol, Staffordshire -everyone knew the other Small Presser.
Look at it this way, IF the Small Press was so “huge” as claimed…where is the national convention? An over priced table at a comic/media event does not indicate any strong movement but the opposite.
So what is my plan? Not telling. If some financial backer comes forward then I will go over things but the caveat to that would be that I was in charge. I have learnt my lessons and have no faith in anyone involved in the remnants of UK comics.
As noted in the past there are two possible places that serious business backers can come from and that is China or India.